* Ashley, Mike, ed. : The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy
(Running Press 978-0762433834, $13.95, 562pp, trade paperback, July 2008)

Anthology of 24 fantasy stories, first published from 1919 to 2006.
• Authors include Orson Scott Card, Ted Chiang, R.A. Lafferty, Michael Swanwick, Howard Waldrop, Christopher Priest, Andy Duncan, Jonathan Lethem, and William Hope Hodgson.
• The UK publisher's site has a longer description than that on the US publisher's site.
• BookSpotCentral.com (formerly FantasyBookSpot) has this long story-by-story review.

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* Bova, Ben : Laugh Lines
(Baen 978-0-4165-5560-5, $22, 521pp, hardcover, July 2008, jacket art Bob Eggleton)

SF collection/omnibus of humorous works, six short stories and novels The Starcrossed (1975), about a TV studio's misbegotten attempt to produce a science fiction series [based on Bova's involvement with '70s series The Starlost, written by Harlan Ellison and novelized by Edward Bryant as Phoenix Without Ashes, also 1975], and Cyberbooks (1989), about the publishing industry's invention of "electrical books".
• Baen's website has this blurb with copyright credits and links to Bova's introduction to The Starlost and the first few chapters.
• The Publishers Weekly review's description began "Slapstick humor, mostly aimed at big business and the entertainment industry, fuels this mix of older works by veteran hard SF writer Bova."

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* Cook, Glen : Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company
(Tor 978-0-7653-2066-7, $15.95, 669pp, trade paperback, June 2008, cover art Raymond Swanland)

Omnibus of three novels, the fourth through the sixth, in the Black Company military fantasy series: Shadow Games (1989), Dreams of Steel (1990), and The Silver Spike (1989).
• This volume follows earlier omnibus Chronicles of the Black Company published last year by Tor.
• Tor's website has this page for the book.

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Heinlein, Robert A. : Between Planets
(Baen 978-1-416-55564-3, $13.99, 227pp, trade paperback, August 2008, cover art Bob Eggleton)

Young adult SF novel, the fifth of Heinlein's popular and fondly remembered 'juveniles' published from 1947 to 1963. It's about a boy caught up in war when colonists on Venus rebel from Earth.
• The book has an introduction by William H. Patterson, Jr., and an afterword by Dr. Travis T. Taylor.
• Baen's website has this description with links to several chapters.
• Wikipedia has this detailed summary.
• The Heinlein Society website has this concordance entry for the book.

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Heinlein, Robert A. : Farmer in the Sky
(Baen 978-1-416-55540-7, $13.99, 210pp, trade paperback, June 2008, cover art Bob Eggleton)

Young adult SF novel, the fourth of Heinlein's popular and fondly remembered 'juveniles' published from 1947 to 1963. It's about a family settling on Jupiter's moon Ganymede.
• Baen's website has this description with links to several chapters.
• Wikipedia has this detailed summary.
• The Heinlein Society website has this concordance entry for the book.

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McCaffrey, Anne : Dragonsong
(Simon Pulse 978-1-416-96488-9, $8.99, 15+192pp, trade paperback, June 2008, cover design and illustration Sammy Jr. Yeun)

Young adult SF novel, first of the "Harper Hall" trilogy and part of McCaffrey's Pern series, set on a planet where settlers use telepathic "dragons" to destroy spores falling from space.
• This book concerns a young girl who runs away from her family to pursue her musical dreams.
• Simon Pulse has reprinted the other two books in the trilogy as well: Dragonsinger (1977) and Dragondrums (1979).
• McCaffrey's website has this page for the book, with a publication history.
• Amazon has its "look inside" feature with an excerpt.

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* Moorcock, Michael : Elric: To Rescue Tanelorn
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-49863-2, $15, 21+460pp, trade paperback, July 2008, cover illustration Michael Wm. Kaluta)

Collection of 14 stories about albino sorcerer Elric of Melnibon‚ and his sentient sword Stormbringer, second in Del Rey's definite series of Elric volumes.
• Stories include the 1962 novella version of "The Eternal Champion", short novel "The Jade Man's Eyes" (1973), and "Elric at the End of Time" (1981). A section called "Origins" reproduces artwork, by Virgil Finlay, James Cawthorn, and others, from the original appearances of some of the stories.
• The book has a foreword by Walter Mosley, and a new introduction by Moorcock.
• Del Rey's site has this description with an excerpt (from "The Eternal Champion").
• Wikipedia has an extensive entry on Elric of Melniboné, complete with a chronology and references to Elric in popular culture.

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Powers, Tim : The Stress of Her Regard
(Tachyon Publications 978-1-892391-79-7, $14.95, 427pp, trade paperback, August 2008, cover design Ann Monn)
(First edition: Ace, September 1989)

Historical horror novel about a man who, after finding his bride murdered in their wedding bed, joins forces with the Romantic poets Byron, Keats, and Shelley to hunt down the vampiric entity victimizing all of them.
• Tachyon's website has this description with blurbs from reviews. The description mentions that this edition is "newly-revised" but gives no details.
• Powers' site has this page about the book, with details and images of past editions.
• The novel won the 1990 Mythopoeic Award and was a World Fantasy Award finalist.

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* Pratchett, Terry : The Discworld Graphic Novels
(Harper 978-0-06-168596-5, $24.95, unppp, hardcover, June 2008)

Omnibus of two graphic novel versions of the first two Discworld novels, The Colour of Magic (1983) and The Light Fantastic (1986); the graphic novel versions were first published in 1992 and 1993.
• HarperCollins' site has this description.

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Thomsen, Brian, & Martin H. Greenberg, eds. : The Reel Stuff
(DAW 978-0-7564-0522-9, $15, 456pp, trade paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: DAW, September 1998)

Anthology of 13 stories that became the bases for movies. This edition is expanded from the 1998 original, adding John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" and Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report".
• Other stories include George R.R. Martin's "Sandkings", John Varley's "Air Raid", William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic", and H.P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West--Reanimator".
• Amazon has a review of the earlier edition by Craig E. Engler.
• The Los Angeles Times ran this review by Edward Champion.

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Westerfeld, Scott : The Risen Empire
(Tor 978-0-7653-1998-2, $14.95, 349pp, trade paperback, August 2008, cover art Stephan Martiniere)
(First edition: Tor, March 2003)

SF novel, a far future space opera, first book of two, followed by The Killing of Worlds. It's set in an interstellar empire in which an elite of "risen" are granted a form of life after death.
• Tor's website has this description.
• Westerfeld's site has this page about the two books -- "This was my attempt to write a space opera for my 14-year-old self, who always wanted big, ass-kicking space battles and hostage rescues and armor-suited ground actions, but ones that made some kind of scientific sense..." -- explaining why the original manuscript was published in two parts.
• Amazon's "look inside" function includes an excerpt.
• Russell Letson's review in Locus Magazine, April 2003, described it a mix of "high tech, interstellar warfare, court intrigue, doomed romance, and rogue AIs, among other spicy ingredients".

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